


And If I Scream In the Night

by clippymagnet (LilDoodleCat)



Series: abyss gets even more angst [3]
Category: Tales of the Abyss
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Night Terrors, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:27:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27237253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilDoodleCat/pseuds/clippymagnet
Summary: Akzeriuth continues to haunt Luke when he sleeps. This time, Jade is there to wake him up.
Relationships: Jade Curtiss & Luke fon Fabre
Series: abyss gets even more angst [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1988653
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	And If I Scream In the Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fullmetalpika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fullmetalpika/gifts).



> Pika bothers me for angst constantly and I can't say no to him.

Luke did not look forward to evenings. Evenings meant stopping, slowing down, giving him time to think. Evenings meant it was nearly night, and then he would sleep. Sleep was never restful anymore.

Tonight was no different as he chewed the slightly burnt curry Anise had made without tasting. Get it down, ignore the twisting in his stomach, if he avoids eating someone will ask what's wrong and he can't—he just can't. Too soon has he cleaned out his bowl, scraping the bottom and the edges with his spoon to prolong the moment. Just a little longer.

He asked Guy to spar with him. It only lasted so long, but it kept his attention away from other things.

Darkness shivers over the grass and turns trees into hulking shadows beneath the cloudy sky.

The bedroll he settles on does not dampen the hard cold or jutting corners of the ground.

Eventually, eventually, as he's rolling around, trying to stay awake and being shushed and scolded by a grumpy Anise, his eyes grow heavy. Too heavy, leaden, scratchy with tiredness.

_____________

It's deafening, but also quiet. Though it's not a deafening quiet, per se, as the cries and wails seem to be echoing in his head and yet the air is still. Luke turns about, green eyes flitting to and fro to find the source of the sound and yet all there is in every direction is bubbling miasmic mud.

A brush against his ankle and he whips around. Nothing.

Then another, and another, and then there are vice-like hands that sting with chill and wide ghostly faces dripping with poisonous muck rising all around him. One or several of those hands scramble for purchase in his hair, yanking and tugging and tangling long crimson strands so hard he swears his hair should've ripped right out of his skull.

And the screaming. It's his and theirs and a small boy murmurs for help from where he's trapped beneath a corpse, sinking into the mud over and over.

It's your fault, you, how could you do this to us, and yet Luke cries that no, he was trying to help.

Miasma curls in his lungs and hot mud stings on his skin as hands upon hands belonging to faces no longer of the living sink him deeper and deeper until the reason he can’t breathe is because there’s mud clogging his throat. It’s thick on his tongue and caking on the roof of his mouth. He gasps for air and it’s in his lungs and he’s suffocating—

“Luke! Wake up!” The heavy voice of the Colonel jerks him and he flails as he sits up, gasping.

He can breathe... he can breathe.

“Quite the nasty night terror you were having, I take it.” Jade’s tone is impassive, no lilt of joking nor tinge of concern or curiosity. It just is.

Luke almost considers denying it, but it’s clear the man knows and his dialogue says as much.

A sigh, and emotion finally wriggles its way if only slightly into Jade’s tone, “It was about Akzeriuth, wasn’t it.”

Luke nods.

The bridge of the Colonel’s nose wrinkles ever so slightly. He shifts from his one-knee crouch beside Luke’s bedspread to standing but doesn’t leave.

Luke pulls his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them and resting his chin on top.

Jade doesn’t say anything else, and Luke will admit to himself later that his steady presence, even if he wasn’t looking at Luke and was simply there, was a comfort entirely different from the chirping crickets and the soft breathing of his sleeping companions. It was nice, knowing he was there.

**Author's Note:**

> [my tumblr](https://lildoodlecat.tumblr.com/)


End file.
